I hadn't intended to go so long between posts on here, but as the old saying goes, 💩 happens.
My blogging seems to be getting more manic with each passing year. I'm at a point now where there's a week or two where the desire to "write" is very high, during which time I'll usually be able to start, and finish, a post or two for each of my three blogs; then I hit a wall. Then it's basically just wait a month, then rinse and repeat. I'm not too keen on this schedule, but for the moment I don't see any way around it.
I don't know when it'll go live, but I'm starting this on April 15th. This morning feels like it's gonna be the start of my short blogging window, so I've got to hurry up and crank out a couple of posts if I want to make the most of it. Having not posted on here in what appears to be almost two months, I thought I'd do a "quick" (spoiler alert: I think I'll have to come back at the end and add another set of quotes to that quick) recap of what I've been up to during that time.
March was one of those months where it felt like it alternately flew by/took an eternity to end. The first half wasn't too bad, but man, the second half sure was the shits.
I'm pretty sure that I've never mentioned it on any of my blogs, but for what seems like decades now I've wanted to learn more about my family's origins. I mean I knew some stuff already, but I want to know everything, or at least everything that can be known. The problem is/has been, that genealogy isn't really something that you can just dip your toes into (at least in the beginning), it's one of those all-or-nothing kind of things, and I a). Didn't know where to start, and b). Didn't know where I'd find the time for it even if I did ever find out where to start. Thanks to a fellow blogger, I was able to find a starting point, and thanks to me being willing to sacrifice all other interests (blogs included) for a few weeks, I found my time.
It all started quite by happenstance when Mark Aubrey, who some of my card friends should already know, if not, he had Mark's Ephemera and Old Knoxville Base Ball, but now only runs the latter, mentioned FamilySearch.Org in his last post back in February. Admittedly, I hadn't looked into anything genealogy related for a few years now, so I was completely unaware that such a site existed. I knew of some of the pay sites, but didn't know that so many free ones had popped up. Of course, Mark is an elite level researcher, so if anyone is gonna know about such sites, it'd be him.
Anyway, this seems to have been the spark that was needed to light my proverbial fire. I spent at least an hour a day for the next few weeks trying to get as much (verifiable information) from that site as I could, which surprisingly, was actually quite a bit. Since I knew more about it, I started with my mom's side first. I knew next to nothing about my dad's side (more on that another time) and had some difficulty in even finding a thread to start with. Thankfully, my mom had some saved papers with just enough information to find said thread.
After a few weeks of Family Search, I decided that despite having read more than a few negative things about it over the years, that I'd do the two-week free trial on Ancestry.com. One of it's biggest knocks that I've read about in the past, and have since read more about, is all of the misinformation on their site. And even after just two weeks on there, I can confirm some of those reports. Apparently, fantasy trees are quite plentiful, and the way the site works, they seem to almost encourage people's laziness/delusions (even more so if you're a paying member). Mixed trees, half well-researched, by other people of course, and half bull-jive seem to be quite numerous as well. I even found one of those that had been created by one of my uncle's kids (she's got to be around 30 by now, but I haven't seen here since she was a baby). She clearly hasn't done any of her own research and is relying on some done by others, with the rest of tree being sourced by early dementia, drugs, or some combination of the two. It's pretty bad. But again, that's supposedly quite common on there.
I've found a few more sites to try out since my free trial ended, and after taking a break for a couple of weeks (I was starting to get burned out), I'm about to do another free-trial on a different site. After that ends, I'll start playing around with a few more of the free ones.
I knew where a few of the paths on my mom's side would lead, but have been surprised by a few others. Same for my dad's. I've been focusing mostly on direct ancestors, but have diverged a few times, which has led me to two great (with varying degrees of great's) uncles that have been somewhat prominent. I don't how many of the five people reading this care about such things, but I will be talking about those uncles at some later date, as well some of the other people that I've found, and the places that they came from. I have a few more early thoughts on genealogy in general, but this post is getting kind of long and I've got other topics to get to, so I think I'm gonna save those general thoughts for a follow-up post sometime next week.
Topic #2: It's now storm season here in the South, so we've been getting some days of booming thunderstorms, heavy rain, big winds, and just general chaos in surrounding areas/regions. Back around the middle of March we got three straight days of near torrential downpour, which was then followed by a day of sustained high wind, whose gusts were on par with those of a tropical storm. As is often the case high winds follow a couple of soggy days, some trees came down. Four trees to be exact. All stupid large, and all in the back yard. These have been occupying a lot of my free outside time since.
Topic #2 1/2: A few weeks ago, I guess just a little over three to be exact, I sustained my first semi-big injury of the year when I smashed my index finger while dicking around with those downed trees. Seeing as how a Rube Goldberg chain of events proceeded the smashing, I don't think that I could properly explain how it happened exactly, but the end result was a log dropping cut-edge first about halfway across my fingernail and forcing the underside of my finger into the cut edge of another piece.
I knew it was bad the second after the wave of pain shot to my brain. I was wearing leather gloves, but that didn't lessen the force any. I had my glove off in seconds, and by then blood was already running out from around my nail. I didn't know what to do first, puke or pass out. Thankfully neither came to fruition, but I did come awfully close to passing out. I've developed a weird fear of seeing blood, more specifically my blood, as I've gotten older, and subsequently tend to overreact if any of my blood is shed. Although, in this instance it was a lot of blood, so I feel like I was somewhat justified in feeling faint and pukey.
I'm very grateful that my mom was around to help dress the wound (stuff like this doesn't bother her), and she was the one who, two days later when it was still bleeding (not as bad, but still leaking more than it should've been every time the bandage was changed), decided to have me dip my finger tip in a cup of witch hazel, which was ultimately what finally got it to stop. I was, and still am fairly certain, that I've got a small fracture near the end of the bone. But, aside from not smashing it again, there's nothing I can really do about that. It still looks pretty gross after three weeks, but at least some of the swelling has started to go down, and it's finally becoming functional again. And the best part, it doesn't look like my nail will be coming off. No lie, I was more worried about that than the possibility of having broke my finger. I don't know how the nail didn't crack where the log edge hit, but it not cracking is probably what saved my nail.
I broke a few fingers during my younger years, but as far as smashing them goes, I thought the worst time had been last summer when I hit my thumb with the back of a hatchet, but this was considerably worse. I hope for my sake that I don't ever have to top it.
Topic #3: I mentioned my depression in the previous post, and you'd think with all of these other distractions going on, that maybe it would have lessened some; but it hasn't. I am in a colossal funk. I think I do know now part of what's brought this on, but have yet to figure out how to use this knowledge in a beneficial sort of way.
Topic #4: Most people would probably agree that it wouldn't be a good idea to start a fourth blog when you can't even keep up with the three that you already have, and yet, I had an idea for one, and am now thinking about doing so. On the flip side though, I've also been thinking about taking an extended (or permanent) break from blogging. Will either extreme come to pass? Who knows. The new blog will not likely be of any interest to the few folks who are reading this, so I probably wouldn't even bother mentioning it's creation were it to happen. I would, however, let people know if I decided to leave. I don't want to be one of those people who just disappears. That's not cool.
Topic #5: I have never had a real vacation before and had been planning on rectifying that by going to Florida sometime this year, but am now starting to rethink that plan. Thanks to all of the selling that I've done on eBay over the last year or so, I do have the money for it, I'm just not sure if this is the wisest way to spend it anymore. With the economy being what it is, and with it not showing any signs of improving, I just don't know if this the best time to be spending that kind of money. The thought of saving it doesn't sound like a lot of fun, but does seem more prudent; just in case.
I also realize that this could potentially be the only vacation that I ever have, so if I am gonna do it maybe I should try and go somewhere more exotic, so to speak. The problem with that is though, there's only three places that I'd like to go (that wouldn't be ruined by being around other tourists), but all three would require me getting onto a plane, which I'm not too keen on, and flying across the Atlantic, which I'm even less keen on.
On the other hand, just once in my life I'd like to visit a warm beach, with warm water. Such places don't exist back in Oregon. Beaches there are cold and damp for most of the year, and the water is never warm. And you know who has warm beaches, with warm water? Florida!
I don't know though, seems like the older I get, the harder it is for me make decisions. I always thought that it would be the other way around, so maybe this is just a me thing. Either way, it really sucks. I miss the days when I didn't have to bother even entertaining such thoughts.
